az cd07

Wilcox makes a dick move against Gallego in AZ07

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Let me disclose that I’ve been for Ruben Gallego since he announced he was running for the seat that veteran Congressman Ed Pastor is retiring from this year. I haven’t made an issue of it because I’m not well versed in the political climate of South Phoenix, despite having a lot of friends there. I’m just impressed by Ruben’s accomplishments and his vigor and, let’s face it, the guy has a solid track record of electoral success, both for his own campaigns and those of others.

I also didn’t have any major beef with Mary Rose Wilcox. It’s purely anecdotal, but that was the sense I got from a lot of Gallego supporters. I have not encountered the kind of animus toward Ruben’s main opponent in the CD07 race that you often see in contested primaries. If anything, Gallego supporters (at least the ones I’ve been around) haven’t liked everything she’s done as a County Supervisor but they were sympathetic to Wilcox over her travails with the Maricopa County Sheriff and former County Attorney.

But then Wilcox’s camp had to go and launch the dumbest and most ham-fisted attack I’ve seen in a long time. Yes, this article is behind a paywall but I’m quoting the relevant facts here:

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Sham Cesar Chavez candidate demonstrates the importance of partisans

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The candidate named Cesar Chavez, running in the Congressional primary in AZ CD7, has been revealed to be a guy formerly named Scott Fistler who was a Republican until recently and had sought other offices in the past as a member of that party.

After petitioning a state superior court last November and paying $319, Fistler now legally shares the name of the celebrated labor movement icon, Cesar Chavez. Earlier this year, Chavez (formerly Fistler) became a Democrat, and – before Ed Pastor announced his retirement from Congress – filed to run in the heavily Hispanic 7th Congressional District.

In his petition for a name change, Fistler wrote that he had “experienced many hardships because of my name.”

It’s unclear at this point whether this guy is a lone wolf or someone who was recruited to act as a spoiler – a la Olivia Cortes in the 2011 Russell Pearce recall. Either way, he’s a sham candidate and such candidacies are an affront to democracy and the community and (even more reprehensibly) often exploitive of highly vulnerable people, even if the candidates (or whoever puts them up to it) follow the letter of the law to qualify for the ballot. Chavez (nee Fistler) managed to get the maximum number of signatures and the state Dem party is exploring what options they have, if any, to remove him from the ballot.

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